


Blood and Earth, Theory and Chalk

by bloodstonepentagram



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:59:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodstonepentagram/pseuds/bloodstonepentagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A daemons AU! Not a full HDM-verse AU, just transposing the idea of daemons onto the WTNV 'verse. I'm trying to do a chapter per episode (wish me luck). Rather than following one particular character/narrative, I'm going to pick the character who I think would be the most fun to focus on for each chapter and run with that. Hopefully we'll end up with an interesting sideways narrative that is appropriately Night Valean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Man In Town

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062757) by [ErinPtah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah). 



> If you're not familiar with the concept of daemons feel free to [read this brief introduction](http://bloodstonepentagram.tumblr.com/post/73903232628/daemons-101), or go boldly forward anyway, your choice. And if you like Night Vale and His Dark Materials, be sure to read [He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1062757/chapters/2131218) by [SailorPtah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorPtah/pseuds/SailorPtah), which is one of the best fanfics I've ever had the pleasure of reading, and is indirectly responsible for this story's creation.

“You can’t seriously expect me to go in there,” Carlos muttered to Lucía, staring in horror at the imposing concrete building in front of him. 

“We came all this way,” the raven on his shoulder reminded him, cocking her so that she could see his face with one beady black eye. “Besides, you’re the one who agreed to get the readings for the station. Everyone is counting on you for this.”

He took a deep, steadying breath. She was right; he’d agreed to this, and now he had to follow through. 

As if reading his mind, Lucía started quietly humming a Doctor Horrible tune. 

“Shut up, you,” he said, flicking his hair at her. Alright. He took one more breath, and then walked purposefully to door.

“Hello!” said the young woman at the front desk when he entered. Her fox daemon sniffed the air curiously as, tail wagging in a friendly greeting. “You must be the scientist,” she said. Carlos wondered how she knew that for a second, until he realized that he was wearing a lab coat and holding a geiger counter, and it probably wasn’t that hard to guess. 

“I’m Dana,” the woman continued, smiling pleasantly. “You’re here to see Cecil, right?”

“Um,” Carlos said. Lucia nudged his neck with her wing, her way of saying _Out with it_. “I’m, um, taking measurements,” he said, waving the geiger counter around as if that constituted proof of his professionalism. “For, um, science.” Oh, wow, for science. Nice going, Carlos. Way to make a good impression with the locals.

To his surprise, Dana just nodded, maintaining her pleasant smile. “Then you’ll want to see the studio. Come on, Cecil just put on the weather, so we can go right in.”

She got up, daemon trotting happily at her heels, and Carlos, looking at Lucía helplessly, saw no choice but to go after her.

As he followed Dana down the station’s dark hallway, trying to ignore both the odd whispers and the strange feeling of being watched, waved the geiger counter around. He looked at it in confusion as it lit up. That…couldn’t be right.

He looked up, and realized that Dana had stopped. She waved him over, knocking on a weathered black door that was identical, as far as Carlos could tell, to the dozens of other weathered black doors lining the hallway. 

“Come in,” said a voice, and Carlos recognized it as the one he’d heard on the radio. He suppressed an embarrassed groan, remembering what the man had said about him. _He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly._ Who said something like that? And why? Carlos almost turned and ran, but Dana was already opening the door, and Carlos once again had no choice but to follow her in.

The studio was small, cozy even, containing only a mic, a soundboard and a desk. Sitting at the desk, shuffling through a large stack of papers, was a man. He looked vaguely familiar; it was possible that Carlos had seen him in the crowd during his speech. 

He turned, looked up. “Oh!” he said. “Hello!” He stood quickly, making as if to move in their direction. 

“Cecil,” a voice said as the man’s bat daemon disconnected from the wall and fluttered around his head. “Headphones.”

“Oh, right,” he said, hitting his forehead dramatically. He pulled the headphones off his neck, setting them down on the soundboard. “I’m always getting caught on those. Um. Hello!” He walked towards them, smiling. His daemon, meanwhile, lighted on Cecil’s arm, clinging to it and peering curiously at Carlos and Lucía. Now that he was sitting still Carlos could see that he was a vampire bat. 

“I’m Cecil,” Cecil said a little breathlessly, pushing a couple of stray dreadlocks out of his face. “Cecil Palmer. It’s an honor to meet you. I mean, I, um, science is…very interesting.”

“Um, yes,” Carlos said, accepting the handshake offered to him while wondering if there was any point in introducing himself at this point.

“So, um, what brings you here?” Cecil asked. “Could I interest you in an interview? I’m sure our listeners would be very interested…”

“No,” Carlos said quickly. Seeing Cecil’s slightly shocked expression he added, “Um, no time. Sorry. I’m… I’m here doing science,” he finished weakly, holding up the geiger counter by way of explanation. 

“Oh!” Cecil said. “Oh, no, of course! We here at Night Vale Communitfy Radio are always happy to help out in the line of scientific inquiries!”

“Alright,” Carlos said, “I’ll just need to, um, look around quickly…”

“Of course!” Cecil said, stepping back to allow Carlos better access to the studio. Carlos realized as he walked further into the room that Dana had left. How long had she been gone? He hadn’t even heard her leave.

He moved the geiger counter up and down, frowning. No, that… That really couldn’t be right. Surely that…

“My god,” he said, moving it closer to the microphone. The low sounds it had been emitting since he turned it on suddenly turned to loud, shrill chirps. “I… This building is dangerous! This level of radiation will kill us all! Cecil, you have to evacuate immediately!”

He whirled to face Cecil, who looked… Utterly unconcerned.

“I can’t leave in the middle of a broadcast,” he said, in a tone that was patronizing enough to be grating. 

“But… You… You will die,” Carlos said, not really sure how much simpler he could make it.

“We will _all_ die,” Cecil said, still sounding like he was talking to a very small child.

“Carlos,” Lucía said, fluttering around his head anxiously, “we have to get out of here.”

“I’m going to go,” Carlos said. “Stay here if you want, I don’t care.” Not wasting another second, he bolted for the door.

“So, no interview today, then?” Cecil called after him, disappointed. “Another time, maybe?”

On the way out, Carlos passed Dana, who had resumed her spot at the front desk, and was currently painting her nails.

“This building is full of dangerous radiation,” he said, hoping that she at least would hear sense. “You all have to evacuate immediately.”

Dana cocked her head. “Have you told Cecil about this?”

“Yes, but he didn’t seem to care!”

“Well,” she said, returning to her nails, “if Cecil says it’s okay then I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

Carlos threw up his hands, not bothering to argue with these people any longer. He jogged outside, hopping into his car.

“Do they realize how serious this is?” Lucía asked, settling down on the passenger seat.

“Apparently not,” Carlos said, shaking his head. “Well, I hope they’ll be okay.”

“Should we just…go back to the lab now..?” the daemon ventured.

“I guess so,” Carlos said, putting the key in the ignition with resignation. “I don’t know what we’re going to tell them, though.”

It turned out that they didn’t need to say much at all; when they got back to the lab, everyone was huddled around a clock. It turned out, Maia explained when he asked what was going on, that the sun was setting at the wrong time.

“What?” Carlos said, Lucía flapping over in disbelief to stare fixedly at the clock.

“It’s true!” she said. “Come look!”

Carlos was startled to discover that they were right.

“What does this…how…” In the end there was no good way to frame the question, and he sat in stunned silence with the rest of them for a while.

Eventually they abandoned the clocks, and took to filling each other in on the day’s findings. It turned out that everyone had a story to tell, most notably James and Sam, who had been investigating a housing development in town.

“So, yeah,” James said, his ferret daemon rearing excitedly on the lab table in front of him, “this house, it just… It doesn’t exist!”

They looked to Sam for confirmation. “It’s true,” ze said, nodding in sync with zer praying mantis daemon. “It really doesn’t seem to exist.”

“Which is totally weird, right?” James said. “I mean, it _looks_ like it exists, and it’s between two other identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there then not…”

“So, Carlos,” Kathy interrupted, her border collie daemon’s ears perking up with interest, “what did you find at the radio station?”

It _seemed_ like an innocent question, and, after all, Carlos had no reason to believe that anyone other than him had heard the strange broadcast earlier that day. “Well,” he said, “there was enough radiation in there to wipe out a small city.”

The team fell silent, looking at each other uneasily.

“Oh,” said Adia finally. “We were just going to tease you about the radio man who has a crush on you.”

“You heard that?” Carlos groaned, looking up at the ceiling. “That was…nothing. I… Shut up.”

“Nice comeback,” Lucía muttered in his ear. He swatted at her irritably.

“Um, do…you think he’ll be okay?” Maia ventured.

Carlos shrugged. “He didn’t seem worried about it. I tried to tell him how dangerous it was, but he said he wouldn’t leave in the middle of a broadcast. So I just left.”

They stared at him, Adia’s octopus daemon even crawling partway out of his bowl to blink accusingly at him.

“What was I supposed to do, carry him out on my shoulder?” Carlos asked. James’s expression quickly made him regret his choice of words.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with the geiger counter,” he said. “He’s been working there for a while, judging from his studio, and he looked fine.”

“ _Did_ he look fine, now?” James asked, shit-eating grin returning to his face. Carlos rolled his eyes, and Sam hit James upside the head helpfully. 

“Thank you, Sam,” Carlos said. “Look, it’s been a long day. We should all get some sleep. We can regroup and talk some more in the morning.”


	2. The White Sand Ice Cream Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanna and Lucy Gutierrez ponder the problem of the dead lion on their roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short, but I think it accomplished everything I wanted it to. If I haven't made this clear already this whole story is kind of experimental, although I hope it's still enjoyable to read. Um. Enjoy!

“Well, that’s disturbing,” said Hannah, staring up at the dead lion that bore a frankly uncanny resemblance to her daemon, Algus. 

“How are we supposed to get it down?” Algus asked, craning his neck to see from under the shelter of their reinforced umbrella.

“I don’t know,” Hannah said thoughtfully. “Do you think we could offer a reward for it?”

“Hannah!” Lucy called from inside the shop. “What are you doing? Get in here before it drops an elephant on you!”

“It’s fine,” Hannah said, waving a hand, but Algus nudged gently at her leg and, sighing, she turned and trudged back inside the shop.

It was full of people, both patrons of the shop and passers-by who had come in seeking respite from the glow cloud’s rain of animal carcasses. In the background Hannah could hear the low murmur of Cecil’s broadcast

Alma, Lucy’s rat-shaped daemon, ran up to Algus, twitching her nose in concern. Algus, in response, leaned down and gently licked her head with a tongue that was almost as large as she was.

“Hannah,” Lucy said, leaning over the counter, “what was it?”

“Dead lion,” Hannah said, walking over to her wife. “It’s stuck up there. I don’t know how we’re going to get it down. Looks a lot like Algy, actually.”

“Oh, dark masters damn it,” Lucy said. “How big was it?”

“How big was it? It was a lion. It was the size of an adult male lion.”

“No need to get snippy,” Lucy said, jaw jutting out like it did when she was annoyed and trying to think. She paced over to the shop’s ancient PA system, Alma abandoning Algus to follow her, and pressed the button to speak.

“Attention,” her voice crackled over the PA, “there is a dead lion stuck on the roof of the shop. Whoever gets it off gets…a free dipped cone.” She looked at Hannah and shrugged. Hannah shrugged back.

“A free dipped cone,” she repeated more firmly. Then she clicked off the PA.

Soon there was a line of people eager to help with the lion’s removal. The glow cloud appeared to have gone elsewhere for the time being, allowing them to safely go outside and assess the damage.

“What we’ve gotta do,” a man with a hawk daemon said, “is get a good, sturdy ladder and knock it down.”

“We can’t do that,” a woman with a snake daemon cut in. “It’ll splatter everywhere, and then we’ll have a puppy infestation on our hands.”

“Like that matters,” the man said. “The streets are covered with dead animals anyway. One more won’t hurt.”

“No splattering dead lions on my sidewalk!” Lucy cut in sternly.

Everyone in town had a suggestion to throw out, from levitation to arson, but since nobody had the proper levitation permits and Alma nearly bit the daemon of the person who suggested arson they ended up doing more standing around and talking than taking any kind of constructive action.

“Alright,” said Hannah after the third round of bickering. “That’s enou-“

SUDDEN LIGHT EXPANDING ACROSS THE SKY, OBSCURING ALL VISION, ALL SOUND, ALL SENSATION.

CALM. DEADNESS.

THE GLOW CLOUD DOES NOT NEED TO CONVERSE WITH US. IT DOES NOT FEEL AS WE TINY HUMANS FEEL. IT HAS NO NEED FOR THOUGHTS OR FEELINGS OF LOVE.

THE GLOW CLOUD SIMPLY IS.

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GLOW CLOUD.

ALL HAIL.

THE SKY OPENS, SINGING DARK MELODIES. LIGHT, COLOR WASHES IN FROM ALL SIDES. A BUS TWISTS THROUGH THE AETHER, HURRYING, AS IF IT LATE FOR AN APPOINTMENT. IT GLANCES WORRIEDLY AT A POCKET WATCH AS IT DISAPPEARS.

THE WORLD TWISTS. THE WORLD SPINS. THE WORLD DISSOLVES.

The world returns.

Hannah found herself standing outside her shop, along with her wife and what seemed like damn near half the town, surrounded by dead animals and a faint scent…vanilla?

“What the hell just happened?” she asked Algus, who simply twisted his head in a lion-ish shrug.

“Is that a dead lion on our roof?” Lucy moaned, pointing. 

Hannah followed her gaze. Huh. That _was_ a dead lion. As a matter of fact, it looked just like Algus. “Well, that’s disturbing,” Hannah said. 

“How are we supposed to get it down?” Algus asked.

“What we’ve gotta do,” said a man with a hawk daemon, “is get a good, sturdy ladder-”

“How about we set fire to the shop?” someone said.

“Don’t you dare set fire to my shop!” Lucy snapped.

Just then, a massive reptilian figure barreled through the sky, three blue helicopters whipping through the air in hot pursuit. Seeing the lion, the five-headed dragon snatched it up off the roof, chucking it at the nearest helicopter. 

The pilot managed to duck away in time, and the lion, flopping like a rag doll, crashed heavily into a parked car nearby.

“My car!” yelped a bystander, running to it. Meanwhile, the dragon and the helicopters flew off into the distance.

“Well,” said Hannah in the stunned silence that followed, “I guess that solves that problem.”

“Well, back to work,” Lucy said. “Anyone want vanilla ice cream?”


	3. Opaque Facts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil and Canivox face the horrors of Station Management in spectacularly anticlimactic fashion. Later, there are donuts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this took me a long time to write. Hopefully I won't have such big gaps between chapter postings in the future, but I can't really promise anything. Anyway, here's ~~Wonderwall~~ chapter 3.

Cecil reached up and set the microphone carefully back onto his desk, cradling the trembling Canivox to his chest with his other hand. 

“Cecil, we can’t go out there!” Canivox whispered. “They’re going to catch us!”

“We can’t just stay here either. They’ll find us sooner or later. Unless they’ve lost object permanence again. But that seems unlikely.”

“But possible,” Canivox said hopefully.

Cecil, ignoring his daemon entirely, took a deep breath, rolled into a crouch and took a deep breath. Beyond the temporary sanctuary of the desk he could hear noises that could best be described as indescribable, and knew that it was something that could best be described as unknowable, and also awful.

Canivox crawled into Cecil’s jacket pocket, clinging tightly to the fabric to prevent the gusts of wind station management was exuding from blowing them apart, like what happened to poor Ricardo and Pia a few years ago. Cecil shuddered at the memory, reaching into his pocket and petting Canivox’s head soothingly.

He took one more breath, trying to control the shaking in his hands.

He ran.

The shrieking winds tore at his head, and, had he not wrapped his arms tightly around his chest as he made his charge, would have ripped his jacket right off his torso. He cupped a hand around his daemon’s pocket as he ran headlong through the winds.

The station’s hallways seemed to elongate as he ran down them, which was fairly unusual, given that it wasn’t a Tuesday, and the inhuman shrieking coming from behind him definitely wasn’t normal, as it wasn’t a blue moon.

The only way to stop the hallway from stretching like that, Cecil knew, was to stop feeling fear. This was more difficult than usual, as his life was in significantly greater danger than usual, and the wind was too loud to perform his usual Tuesday rendition of _I’m Walking On Sunshine_. Instead he tried to concentrate on reciting the Boy Scout Blood Oath over and over again. He could never quite remember the bit about fire…

Suddenly he realized that he was in the front office. Everyone else was gone, papers strewn about haphazardly. Hopefully the other interns had escaped. It was a pity about Jerry and Chad, but as the old saying went, a community radio intern’s life was mean, nasty, brutish and short.

God, he needed a drink. Well. He straightened out his jacket, gently patted the pocket Canivox was still cowering in, and calmly walked toward the door.

That was when they caught him by the ankle and dragged him back throughout the halls.

Cecil fell flat on his face, having to twist abruptly mid-fall so as not to land on his daemon. He landed heavily on one shoulder, wincing at the shock of the impact. Canivox squeaked in alarm, but luckily seemed unharmed.

Cecil struggled uselessly against the _thing_ that was holding his leg as he was dragged backwards into the darkening hallways…

Cecil found himself blearily opening his eyes, Canivox curled up against his neck.

He blinked. He wondered momentarily why the room was so blurry, until finally he realized that he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

Squinting around, it looked like he was in… His bedroom?

He took a few moments to gather the willpower to sit up. Canivox murmured sleepily in protest as he was nearly knocked from his perch, and Cecil felt his daemon’s claws digging deeper into the fabric of his shirt.

“What…happened?” Cecil asked, yawning widely in the middle of his question.

“Dunno,” Canivox muttered. “We fell down, we went down a hall… Nothing.”

“Well, we’re alive. That’s probably a good sign. Do you think they…fired us?” The thought was difficult to voice, horrible as it was, but Cecil wanted to think through as many possibilities as he could.

“I hope not.”

Cecil fumbled for his glasses, which were sitting in their usual place on his bedside table, although, of course, he didn’t remember putting them there.

Next to his glasses was a note, written on bright pink stationary. He read over the neat cursive script a couple of times before he’d woken himself up enough to comprehend it.

_Cecil,_ the note read;

_We got a call from the Sheriff’s Secret Police a couple hours after the *incident* and found you lying unconscious outside of the station. We used your key to let ourselves in so we could put you in bed. The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home said that you wouldn’t mind. We all got out okay, except for Jerry and Chad, but you already know about that. Unless you forgot or had your memory altered, in which case, Jerry and Chad were vaporized._

_As for the *incident*, we’ve all agreed that we should probably not talk too much about it. I don’t know what happened to you but you seemed fine and I don’t think you were fired. One of us is going to come check on you later today just to make sure you’re okay. If you can’t come to work we’ll find someone to cover for you._

_Love, Dana._

Cecil summarized the note’s contents for Canivox, for whom reading was sometimes difficult, and then slumped back into his large collection of pillows, relieved. Dana thought of everything. What had he done before she’d started interning for him?

“We haven’t had a day off in forever,” Canivox said hopefully, climbing up a rope of Cecil’s hair to perch on top of his head.

“Mmm,” he said, closing his eyes a little. He had to resist the urge to try and remember what had happened last night; best case it wouldn’t work and worst case he’d be horribly scarred with memories of horrors beyond his mortal comprehension. Been there, done that. Still, there was always that journalistic impulse to discover things. Best to think of something else entirely.

He slowly stretched his arms, working feeling back into his joints, and finally rose, scratching idly at the stubble on his chin.

“Don’t forget your antibiotics,” Canivox chirped from atop his head.

Cecil sighed heavily.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Canivox said. “You know what Teddy Williams said. Lyme disease is-“

“I know, I know,” Cecil said. “But I _need_ coffee.”

“Coffee _after_.”

A couple hours later Cecil, feeling sufficiently medicated, caffeinated and showered, answered the door for the intern who had come to check on him.

“Good afternoon!” Dana said cheerfully. Her daemon Malacoda wagged his tail in greeting. 

“Oh, hi, Dana,” Cecil said. “Come in!”

She bounced in happily, handing him a paper bag. “Donuts,” she explained.

Cecil practically tore open the bag- yes!, she’d gotten jelly-filled- as Canivox fluttered down from his head to land on Mal, giving him a friendly greeting lick.

Dana and Cecil sat down at the kitchen table while they ate, chatting idly about Chad and Jerry’s funeral plans, about the underground city Teddy Williams had found last month, about _Telly_ , traitorous awful Telly and his monstrous swan daemon who had given beautiful Carlos that awful haircut-

“Well,” Dana said finally, “I have to go to work now. Are you going to come too?”

Cecil tapped his fingers on the table nervously. “I guess so,” he said. “You’re sure I’m not fired?”

“You’re still alive and I didn’t see an envelope, so I don’t think you are,” Dana said. “Do you remember what happened at all?”

Cecil shook his head. “I remember being dragged down a hallway, and then… I woke up in bed.” He shrugged. 

“Does Cani remember anything?” 

“Only as much as I do.”

“Well,” Dana said, “we should go. Do you want to…um…change clothes, or..?”

Cecil looked down at his outfit, then back at Dana in confusion. “Why would I want to do that?”

“No reason. Let’s go.”


	4. Vile Scorpio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Carlsberg runs into a certain scientist after his PTA meeting is interrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way longer than I wanted, largely because Cookies jossed my ship. Adam and Steve was beautiful while it lasted. Anyway, I did my best to re-write it in compliance with the new information about Steve. Enjoy!

Steve crawled through the auditorium using his empty scone tray as cover. The pteranodons seemed distracted, by what Steve didn’t stop to find out. His river otter daemon Peregrina bounded ahead slightly keeping lookout. Occasionally she bounced back to check in on Steve and/or hurry him along. 

“Halfway there!” she called to him, bouncing back and forth impatiently. 

“Calm down, I’m coming,” he said. Just then a pteranodon swept overhead, shrieking loudly. “Fuck.” He started crawling faster, not caring how ridiculous he looked.

They crawled close enough to the auditorium’s doors, and then Steve stood, making a run for it. Peri dashed to his side with lutrine enthusiasm. 

As he was leaving he heard a scream from behind them. He turned to see Diane Crayton, carrying her reptilian daemon, running from a pteranodon that was quickly bearing down on her.

Then she tripped.

She aimed her gun at its head, taking three shots, but the bullets didn’t seem to affect the creature.

“God dammit,” Steve said. Why had he left his rifle in the car? He paused, taking aim with the only weapon he had.

The platter wasn’t particularly aerodynamic, but some dark gods must have been smiling on Steve, because it flew in a solid arc, connecting with the space right between the pteranodon’s beak and its eyes.

Diane scrambled for the exit, and Steve helped her up. Then he started running again.

“Something!” he called as he ran. “Something, something, something! Dinosaurs! In the auditorium!” 

There was a rustling in the bushes and several dark shapes burst out of them, running and speaking pig Latin into walkie-talkies. Well, that was taken care of. Steve considered sticking around to help, but frankly he didn’t feel like dying today.

It was too bad about the tray, though. His wife wasn’t going to be happy about that.

As he was walking to the car, Peri, bounding a few steps ahead, saw something, and jerked to a startled halt. Steve tensed, wishing he had something else to throw. 

Then Peri relaxed, waddling a little closer, and Steve followed her.

It turned out that what, or _who_ , Peri had seen, was a man in a white lab coat with a crow daemon, speaking rapidly into a recording device. The two of them didn’t seem to notice Steve and Peri at first, but Steve recognized them immediately.

Carlos’s daemon spotted them first, pecking Carlos on the wrist until he looked up and noticed them too. “Oh, um, hi,” he said, quickly covering something with his lab coat. He was wearing a hat, something he had taken to doing recently. Cecil didn’t like to talk about it.

“Hi, there,” said Steve. “Hiding from the dinosaurs?”

“Actually they’re not dinosaurs, they’re pteranodons-“ Carlos started absently, before his daemon pecked him again. “Ow! I mean, um, yes.”

“I was just about to get out of here,” Steve said helpfully, gesturing to his car. “I could give you a ride, if you want.”

Carlos shared a look with his daemon that Steve couldn’t quite figure out. He tapped his foot a little, impatient.

Then out of the corner of his eye he saw something large coming out of the auditorium.

“One of them got out!” he said, vaulting into his car. Carlos, after a moment’s hesitation to put something in his bag of scientific instruments, followed him.

The creature sailed overhead, letting out a keening shriek. Carlos watched it carefully as it flew off.

Steve, meanwhile started up his car. “We should get out of here before more get out,” he said conversationally as the engine, thankfully, hummed to life, rather than emitting that worrying plume of cyan smoke like it had been doing lately. He really needed to get that looked at.

“So,” he continued cheerfully, “am I dropping you off at your lab?”

“Oh, um, yes. Thanks.” Carlos seemed distracted. Steve couldn’t think why.

“So,” said Steve as he pulled out of the parking lot, “are you all settling in all right?”

“Mmm, yes,” Carlos said, leaning over and rearranging something in his bag. His daemon, perched on his shoulder, leaned in to watch what he was doing. Finally, seeming satisfied, they both sat up and looked out the window.

Steve tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to think of something to fill the silence with. “Do any good science lately?” he said finally.

“All science is good science,” said Carlos, adjusting his hat. 

“Riiiiight,” said Steve, glancing in the mirror to share a look with Peri, who was lounging in the backseat. “So…were you at the PTA meeting?”

Carlos shook his head. “No. I was just doing some scientific experiments nearby and followed the sound of screaming.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “That’s…nice.” Feeling like he was putting all of the work into their conversation, he continued, “I’ve been going lately for my stepdaughter Janice’s sake. I think it’s important to make sure your kids get a good education. Of course I can’t do much, what with the stranglehold the government has on our education system. I thought it would be better to just pull Janice out and homeschool her, but my wife said no.” 

She had also told her brother about it, and he had spent a good ten minutes of airtime the next day ranting about the importance of public schools. Steve didn’t like to speak badly of his brother-in-law but sometimes he thought the man bought into government propaganda a little too easily. He didn’t say that to Carlos, though. He knew about Cecil’s little crush and he didn’t want to do anything that would hurt his chances. 

He made a few more attempts to make friendly conversation on the drive, but Carlos remained unresponsive. He still seemed to be preoccupied. He kept checking his bag every few minutes as if making sure that whatever was in there was still in there. He saw Peri craning her neck to try to see what it was a couple times, but by her disappointed expression he could tell that she couldn’t see anything. 

Finally, they pulled up in front of the lab, right next to Big Rico’s Pizza. That reminded Steve that he hadn’t eaten at Big Rico’s yet this week. It would not do to be overdue again. He still couldn’t remember what had happened the last time he’d forgotten, but he didn’t think it had been good.

Carlos was already halfway out the door by the time Steve had come to a complete stop. “Thanks for the ride!” he said, dashing out, his daemon fluttering around his head.

“What a nice man,” said Steve.

“A little strange, though,” said Peri.

“Did you see what was in the bag?”

“No.”

“Oh well,” said Steve. “Let’s go home.”

He turned the car back onto the road, hoping that the wormhole around the corner was still open.

He was in luck. Not only was it open, but it deposited his car right onto the driveway. He and Peri hopped out, heading inside, thinking that he would have a nice snack and update his files on Scientist, Carlos the (he _had_ to remember to find out his last name sometime) before going to bed.

The house was dark when he got in. His wife was most likely in bed- she’d had to wake up early that morning and had seemed pretty tired. He did hear the TV on in the living room. Maybe Janice had fallen asleep watching that puppet show again. He poked his head in- sure enough, there she was, curled up with her daemon (currently cat-shaped). He walked in softly and turned the TV off before going into the kitchen. 

As he was pouring himself a glass of orange milk he saw a large winged figure swoop past, followed a few minutes later by some out-of-breath secret police. He innocently turned away from the window, taking a slow sip of milk. He wondered if he had any scones left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did Carlos have in that bag? You'll find out! Eventually. Maybe. Life is full of uncertainties.


End file.
